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Napping or communicating

This is the type of email I get all the time and frankly it fills me with dread. I can see the complexity of a situation and the 101 questions I want to ask, yet the simple contradictions and beliefs that lead to myths of training and general popular assumptions on horse behaviour, add in the passion of a young lady clearly seeing the beauty in her horse, seeking to resist the influence of those older than her who she doesn’t quite believe for an interesting challenge.

Hi there, I'm 14. I have been riding since I was 4, and my mum has been riding for years. We recently, after an 18 month break from riding and owning horses, decided to buy a horse, 15.2h beautifully natured warm blood, which we later discovered was a thoroughbred. We've had him around a month and 3 weeks, and he has started to become very heard instinctive, neighing for his friends all the time, and we were told he was brilliant on roads/hacks. This was the case for a while, yet recently, he has been backing up in the roads, swinging his hind quarters into the road and being dangerous to both drivers in cars and myself. In one case rearing and also spooking when previously he was brilliant on roads and practically bombproof. My mum wants him to go back to the previous owner, because she thinks he isn't safe for me to ride or her, but previous to all this unusual behaviour, before this all started to happen, he had the most beautiful character, and personality. I love him to bits and am determined to work with him to resolve his issues and work to make him a safe horse again. Me and my mum both believe in natural horsemanship and we use many of the Monty Roberts and Parelli techniques to get him to listen to us and respect our personal space etc. I don't know what has happened to him, but I wondered if you could give your insight and offer your opinion. One more thing you should know, we previously had him off a dealers yard, he was very underweight and underfed, so my mum believes that a reason for this behaviour is that he is starting to look better, and feel better in himself so he is starting to act up. As well, a friend of mine said that she thinks he's trying to 'test the boundaries with me' and try to determine who is the dominant and who is the leader. Even though my mum wants to find another horse, I know that my horse is a beautifully natured horse, and just needs to work out his issues. I really hope you can give your insight or maybe give me some advice to start working with him.

Thank you

This is the perfect example of the confusions and contradictions in our human logic napping produces in so many people, especially if the napping is a new behaviour. I am not criticising this young lady, it is the equine industry and the way so many people view equine behaviour that’s the problem. Here is my chance to help a young person understand her horse and perhaps forever change her view of horse behaviour.

So where to start, well I guess the true nature of equines forms the base of any behavioural understanding. Equines aren’t capable of deceit, they can’t just do things just to take the mikey. Explaining why they can’t do this is another whole article or clinic day but to say that scientifically the brain function required to be deceitful only has been proved thus far in humans and non human primates. Equines are honest and their behaviour always has a reason even if we can’t see the reason. This horse isn’t testing the boundaries to see what he can get away with or who is dominant he is reacting to a situation.

It is really common for us humans to give behaviour emotionalised meanings, trying to avoid fearful situations becomes domination attempts. As usual we place our self importance centrally to the situation and give behaviour an emotion. When we look at it and suggest perhaps the horse is just trying to avoid traffic or unfamiliar situations our understanding of the animal’s motivations change. Of course then I am open to the counter attack of “he used to be ok,” why is it so strange to us that a horses behaviour changes, after all we are the most “intelligent” species on the planet yet we lose confidence, develop depression, become nervous, gain confident or become brave we change all the time why wouldn’t a horse? With a history on a dealers yard where many horses with problems end up, being under weight it is not surprising that this horses behaviour is changing. Of course with weight gain comes a change of shape, so I would have to recommend that the saddle was checked by a professional saddle fitter who could ensure changes in the animals body were not causing any problem with ill fitting tack. Pain is a major cause of napping behaviour, no horse wants to do stuff that hurts and the more tense they become such as when leaving the herd or in fearful situations the more the pain can effect behaviour.

Interesting that we note the signs of his dependence on his friends for confidence, “neighing to his herd mates all the time” this means for some reason his true personality is coming out. It takes time to settle in and a horse’s behaviour often changes in the first weeks and months as changes in herd dynamics, human relationships, diet and environment all play a role in behaviour formation. This is key to the problem here, once he started this neighing behaviour then his behaviour on the road was always likely to change. Look out for these early changes in normal behaviour and listen to them. For more on this see my last article on spotting the signs of stress.

The use of these natural horsemanship methods to make him listen to the owners and respect their space rings alarm bells with me, does this mean that he had some difficulties with the requirements of domestication and so would get into the owners space, often a sign or nerves, so they thought they had to make him respect them or did they do some routine mixture of methods as a precaution regardless of the horse’s personality. This could mean he just doesn’t have a basic level of experience and quality training that allows him to behave appropriately. If a horse does have the strong solid foundations of problem solving, confidence and trust and can’t perform the 11 required domesticated behaviours other problems can come from this simple lack of education. However, we do know that he was beautifully natured, beautiful character and personality so not really the description of a pushy dominant horse but more of a natural follower, kind and willing, so maybe a clash of training methods and personality?

So what else, well we do have to take a look at the conflicting human behaviour, the naturally protective, and rightly so, behaviour of mum, labelling him and his behaviour as bad, the confusion of the young lady loving her horse, fearful mum will get rid of him, nervous of being hurt yet slightly believing she should be teaching him she is the boss. The nature of this horse from what we can tell is to try and do the right thing and having spent a month or so being ok the most common thing to change is the human. We ask more, we expect more. I have no idea what work has been done to develop trust and confidence between horse and rider, how soon it was before they rode him out on the road. Up to a point it appears the horse trusted the human to keep them safe and then something changed. Perhaps a small unexpected spook, perhaps a half surprised side step in the horse raised a question mark in this young riders head. Often small changes begin to grow in to major problems, especially as in the case of napping, the horse is so often “pushed” through it and made to go on. This change quickly develops in to nervousness and lack of trust and for the natural follower or nervous horse this is a real problem.

The behaviours he is showing are natural equine problem solving behaviours, pretty extreme, which indicates how much of a problem this horse perceives he has to solve. He is having to react this way because he doesn’t have the confidence in himself or his human to cope/deal with the situations he finds himself in. It would be much less energy, less fearful and less dangerous to the horse just to continue to deal with the traffic. This behaviour is based on fear and nervousness.

So what to be done about it, well as you can see I would really need to ask a lot more questions for a start to begin to even be sure we had the diagnosis correct, that’s the reason I like to do a four hour home visit, every horse, human and environment are unique and so it takes me a hour of detective work to eliminate all the possibilities, after all if you start of with a wrong diagnosis the treatment will inevitably be wrong too.

Napping is often about rebuilding the confidence in the individuals and in each other, while teaching the horse a better way of solving problems, such as standing still and ultimately teaching them to be calm and relaxed and that they can deal with everything the road presents. So here are the steps I would recommend could be about 2-3 months work to ensure safety and a great foundation that will not only help the napping but will create a foundation that will transform the relationship and this horse forever.

Step 1. Stop riding on the road, too dangerous at this stage and it is making the situation worse.

Step 2. Get agreement from mother and daughter that they are willing to take the time it takes to safely change the behaviour.

Step 3. Take the pressure off, have a week of quality time do things that are easy and he can do enjoy each other.

Step 4. Ensure pain and ill fitting tack are not influencing the behaviour.